


Interpretation of Dreams

by hit_the_books



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Body Horror, Bottom Will Graham, Breaking Up with Alana, Cannibalism, Cravings, Domestic Fluff, Doppelganger, Forced Pregnancy, Giving Birth, Hannibal Is Going to Have To Take One For The Team, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter is a Cannibal, Hannibal is Curious As Always, Happy Ending, Happy Murder Family, Impregnation, Kinda, M/M, Morning Sickness, Mpreg, Murder Husbands, Nesting, Nobody Touches Will Unless It's Hannibal, Not Beta Read, Oviposition, Post-Episode: s02e08 Su-zakana, Pregnancy Kink, Pregnant Will Graham, Protective Hannibal Lecter, Sleep Sex, Tags May Change, Tentacle Monsters, Tentacle Rape, Tentacle Sex, Tentacles, Top Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham Loves Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham is a Cannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:28:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26956582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hit_the_books/pseuds/hit_the_books
Summary: Will is attacked by a tentacle monster that looks like Hannibal and is impregnated by it. When the real Hannibal finds out, he kicks into protective mode.Holed up in Hannibal's Baltimore home, Hannibal is determined to keep Will safe, but also find out more about what's growing inside of him.
Relationships: Background Alana Bloom/Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Creature, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 53
Kudos: 310





	1. Will

**Author's Note:**

> Had a tentacle fic idea stewing about for the past week and I really wanted to write something over the run up to Halloween.
> 
> I have a couple of chapters drafted already, so I'll be posting those up until Halloween (at least that's my aim).
> 
> But I don't know how long this fic will be. Probably under five chapters.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy.

Shivering, Will turned in his sleep, sweat soaked locks clinging to his forehead.

He was by the river sorting through his fly fishing gear, looking for the right lure for the conditions. The water seemed faster that day, likely due to the rain from several nights before. Will pulled out the lure he needed, all sharp red feathers and hidden intent. He pinned it to his lure vest and set about picking out a few more that might serve his purposes. As he picked through his gear, he inhaled deeply the loamy forest and crisp river, suffusing his senses with a feeling of calm that he rarely felt around people. Well everyone bar one.

The sky overhead was a crisp blue, the trees on the verge of fall colors. The river water was clear. All that Will desired in a dream perfect setting.

Satisfied he had all he needed, Will took his line and tied the red lure to the end and then took himself and his rod out into the water. Even with the layers underneath his waders, Will felt a chill from the water streaming past and around him. He waded carefully out to the right depth, his movements considered and practiced—making sure he didn’t alarm what fish might be present. Little puffs of silt and tiny pebbles shifted with each of Will’s steps until he was finally in what his experienced eye called the right place. And then he waited.

The water around him cleared and he was, for all intents and purposes to the fish, just some log standing in the river. He readied his line and then drove it out, arcing it perfectly through the air, the lure singing with it, until it plopped down into the flow. Will sighed and breathed in deeply through his nose, enjoying the lack of human smells around him. The lack of people.

Empty peace.

Will watched the lure bob above the water, eyes half-lidded. Thoughts of the week nowhere to be found. Nothing of the insistent pressure from Jack or the victims mounting up. Just a dream built upon the hundreds of memories Will had cultivated for himself and hoarded like nothing else in his life, aside from his dogs.

Patience was all he had as he stood in the rushing water, waiting for a fish to bite. And he was glad to give only that part of himself, because it was such a small ask of him compared to what waited for him in waking. He could feel his heart rate slowing to a just below sixty beats per minute, as he stood and waited, body never growing tired. It was almost like meditation for him to be out in the river like this, the place he reached so bereft of memories and concerns, of promises and betrayals. Nothing or no one to hound him and his space.

“You like it here,” murmured Abigail. She was a memory, but the only one Will can allow to set foot in this space. She was standing in her own waders, some ten foot from Will, nearer the bank.

“It’s peaceful,” Will replied, voice a whisper.

“Why dream of this when you think about and do this while awake?”

“Because I haven’t been able to go in some time.”

“You’re too busy,” Abigail summarized. Or the facsimile of her did.

“I am too busy,” Will agreed.

“You could ask to not be busy,” Abigail said.

Being reprimanded by the ghost of a young woman was not what Will had expected when he’d allowed his sleeping mind to draw him here. “I could, but that didn’t end so well for me last time.”

“Now is different.”

Will hummed, pushing back against the thoughts of waking that were ready to swarm over him in his sleep. “Abigail, please.”

She pursed her mouth in that frustrated way she always did when she was alive. Nose flaring a little. Will blinked and she was gone.

Alone again, Will slowly let out his breath, reaching back to stillness.

The lure slipped under the flow of the river and the line suddenly drew taut. Dream Will allowed a little slack and then began to reel in his catch.

“Will,” Hannibal called.

Frowning, Will’s attention slipped from the dream fish to Hannibal, greeted by a bizarre sight. Hannibal in teal colored waders, a tawny plaid suit on underneath. Hannibal rarely encroached on this particular part of Will’s dreamscape when he was asleep, and when he was awake it was an even more infrequent occurrence. Instead the wendigo had come to the water more times than Hannibal .

“What do you want?” Will called, frustrated at the intrusion. He had been having such a pleasant dream. Whenever Hannibal found his way into them, they were always more complicated and layered with meaning that Will didn’t want to think about—thinking too hard on such things led to more questions and pain than Will could comfortably handle.

“Do you find this peaceful?” Hannibal asked.

Dream Will rolled his eyes, no desire to face psychoanalyzing inside his own head. “Yes. Even more peaceful when I am uninterrupted.”

The rebuke was harsher than Will would attempt in person, at least most of the time. Perhaps he would dare more after a glass of wine or two, or in moments when his own anger and frustration threatened to consume him.

“Our dreams can tell us a great de-”

“Oh, don’t you dare roll out such cheap insight. You’re above that, Hannibal, even in my dreams you’re above that.”

Dream Hannibal met Will’s eyes and for a moment, Will wanted to turn away, to put some kind of distance between him and that gaze. How his dream seemed to be slipping away from him and turning into a creeping nightmare—Will was unsure. Never before had the river failed him so.

“What would you have me say, Will?” Hannibal just about purred.

Around Will, the river and its bank, the sun and the sky—it all seemed to be muted like a faded photo. Hannibal was crisp and the smile on his face showing more teeth than Will normally saw from him.

“I would have you go,” Will said, because the other option was far more involved and he didn’t want to ask, not yet.

Hannibal tilted his head to the side. “Is that what you truly want?”

Will shuddered and Hannibal was transported into his space. The fishing line was gone from Will’s hand and he closed his eyes.

His bed surrounded him and he let out a breath of relief until his eyes flicked to the foot of his bed. Hannibal loomed there, the darkness folded around him like a void of absolute nothing, dressed in the same tawny plaid as his dream. The world ended at Hannibal.

“Hannibal?” Will asked in sleepy confusion, fear slowly mounting.

But Hannibal said nothing, instead climbing onto Will’s bed, making the mattress shift under him. Will tried to scramble away, to roll out of bed, but he was tangled in his bed sheets and all he managed to do was to get himself further entwined.

With a lurch, Hannibal suddenly covered Will with his body, towering over him on all fours. Heart rate picking up, Will felt the warmth of Hannibal’s body through his bed covers and his traitorous cock started to take an interest in this bizarre set of proceedings.

Hannibal sniffed the air, taking a long deep breath through his nose and then grinned, teeth showing like the dream Hannibal had done. Nothing but malice and ill intent present. For a split second Will thought that Hannibal had found out about Jack and Will’s plans.

And then he felt a tug on his right foot, like something had wrapped around his ankle and was pulling on it. How that was possible, Will had no idea, because Hannibal’s hands were either side of Will’s head. Another unknown appendage slid up his left leg and Will tried to glance between his body and Hannibal’s, a shocked gasp escaping him when he saw the profile of something long and thick curving along him under the covers. His shock deepened as his eyes adjusted to the gloom and saw an inky black appendage snaking away from Hannibal’s crotch and down under the sheets. He felt warmth and a slight slickness from the large appendage as it slid along him and then settled over the boxers he’d worn to bed.

“Ah!” Will gasped as the appendage, tentacle really, pressed down on his hardness. The friction made Will’s eyes water as he leaked a touch of pre-come.

“I think,” Hannibal said, “that we have little need for clothes right now.”

Will’s world lurched again, and cold air stung his skin as he was pulled from under the bed covers by more of those inky black appendages and his clothes ripped from his body. Hannibal’s suit was gone, a tattered mess thrown aside. Will was held suspended in the air by more limbs than he could count, all of them flowing from Hannibal’s body.

For the briefest moment, Will considered that the creature in front of him was not Hannibal, but then a thinner tentacle crept up his back and around his throat. Its destination was clear and Will shut his mouth tight, only for another tentacle to come in and cover his nose. He tried to hold his breath, tried to pull against the limbs holding his body in place, but too soon he gasped for air and the tentacle intent on his mouth slid inside and down, down, down.

The tentacle tasted sweet and salty, like salted caramel, and oozed something down the back of Will’s throat, pooling heat inside of him, making him feel hazy and less panicked as the tentacle on his nose slipped away.

“That’s it,” Hannibal cooed.

A prod at his entrance made Will clench and whimper around the tentacle he was now suckling. Hannibal reached out a hand and stroked the side of Will’s face, the touch gentle and reverent.

“Allow me to worship you,” Hannibal said. “It is all you deserve.”

Will whined and the tentacle at his ass slicked his entrance and then narrowed itself before prodding again. The press was unfamiliar and hurt, making Will shake with discomfort. He gulped down more of the sweet tasting ooze and felt himself relax again. The tentacle by his ass pressed forward and slipped past the tight muscles of Will’s opening and quested deeper, filling out and growing as it went. Tears began to drip down Will’s cheeks as his cock started to leak more sticky white pre-come.

Will tried to move his head, but the tentacle wrapped around his throat kept him still. All he could see was Hannibal’s face and an indistinct pulsating mass that filled the air. And Will realized that perhaps he did not wish to see how he looked—how thoroughly debauched as he was used.

The tentacle inside of Will’s entrance curled over that sensitive spot inside of him, the pressure sending shocks through his body, making him shake and clench. His cock leaked even more and Will cried out around the tentacle in his mouth. He wasn’t far from climax, hard and leaking as he was and then he felt a second limb tease around his stretched out rim.

There was no way anything more could fit inside of him, and yet the appendage teased and caressed, slicking his opening further, a tip wiggling in and pressing against the tentacle already there. Persistent and lithe, the limb worked Will open further, pressing in and filling Will beyond what he thought possible for anyone’s anatomy. He wanted to say it was too much, to ask for it to stop, but the tentacle in his mouth swallowed his protests.

Seeming to sense his distress, Hannibal cooed at him and made shushing noises, hands reaching out and stroking Will’s face and chest. “Everything will be fine, my dear sweet Will. Please, don’t worry.”

The tentacle in Will’s mouth oozed more of its sweet mixture down Will’s throat, while a tentacle curled around his cock and began to stroke him in earnest. Pleasure won out over the pain in his ass, and Will moaned and bucked weakly in Hannibal’s grip. One particular coordination of effort from the tentacle on his cock and the first one in his ass sent Will over the edge, making him come hot and thick between him and Hannibal. His release coating both their stomachs.

“There, there,” Hannibal soothed. And then the second tentacle seemed to begin growing again.

Hannibal’s grip on Will shifted ever so slightly and through blissed out haze, Will looked down between their bodies and saw the third tentacle that was driving into him. It was like a series of large golf balls were filling its length and they were slowly being eased towards Will.

A cry of “no, no, no” curled in the back of Will’s throat with no real outlet as another load of the sickly sweet ooze filled his mouth. He screamed around the tentacle in his mouth as the first egg pushed past his puffy rim and then the next. Each sliding in with a spike of tearing pressure as they did.

Hannibal began to pant and Will’s tears flowed freely down his face. Will could feel his stomach stretch, his skin impossibly taut.

“Just perfect and ripe,” Hannibal moaned. “Like you were made… for me,” he gasped as the last egg pushed inside of Will. And then Hannibal shuddered, and the second tentacle came inside of Will, pressing his stomach even further out as he was filled.

Will groaned as an unexpected second orgasm caught him and he came as Hannibal continued to fill him.

Unable to get quite enough air, Will blacked out.

***

Sunlight streamed through the gaps in Will’s curtains. He rolled onto his side, body aching and sore in ways he didn’t expect. And then the night before came back to him. Scrambling out of his bed, and tripping over his bed covers, Will backed away from the bed in shock.

He was dressed in the t-shirt and boxers, but not the ones he’d gone to bed in. And as he looked down his body, he wasn’t sure if perhaps his stomach bulged out more than before. But he was dressed and whole—perhaps it was no more than just gas.

A scrabbling of claws above him drew attention to the fact that the entire pack of his dogs were upstairs. Will didn’t think that he’d locked them in the room up there, but perhaps he had? As he turned to head upstairs, his eyes failed to spot the scrap of tawny plaid that had fallen beneath his bed.


	2. Hannibal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No smut this chapter, but... Hannibal is feeling something.

Darkness covered Baltimore like a blanket, tucking it in tightly as the street lights glowed like industrious fireflies in the misty haze that had gripped the evening air. Hannibal looked to the entrance of his practice and then to the watch on his left wrist. It was time for Will’s appointment. Straightening and smoothing his suit and tie, Hannibal preened for a second as he looked at his own reflection in the window, before pulling the net curtains and curtains back across.

Several long strides took him to the entrance and he opened the door with a warm smile directed at Will. He was always pleased, even now, to see Will and was happy to see a small smile creep onto Will’s lips in return and even reach his eyes. Will stood up from the seat he’d been waiting in and followed Hannibal into his office.

It was only as Will passed Hannibal beside the door and Hannibal gently breathed in that unique scent of Will’s that he noticed something cloying under Will’s normal odor. Normally Will smelled of the outdoors and the comforts of a simple home. Of sweat and engine oil. But underneath it all that day was something else he could not quite place—a sweetness different to fever, tantalizing in its own way, like salted caramel. For a moment Hannibal considered whether Will was, once again, ill and deciding that if the younger man was, then he would need to cook for him more often. He’d seen the interior of Will’s refrigerator far too many times and Hannibal knew all too well what Will fed himself when left to his own devices.

His dogs ate better more often than not.

He watched Will closely as he sat in his usual seat, noting the way that Will placed a hand on his stomach as he lowered himself to the seat as if he was off-balance and sore. He wore a baggy knitted sweater in a deep green that Hannibal admitted looked very comfortable and warm, but was not something he’d seen Will in before. It reminded him of the “hygge” style that had been popularized by some Scandinavian countries in recent years.

Something was off, indeed, but from just pure observation alone, Hannibal could not think for the life of him what was wrong with his friend. He closed the door.

“How are you, Will?” Hannibal asked, unbuttoning his suit jacket as he stalked towards his drinks cabinet. “Would you care for a glass?”

Hannibal looked over his shoulder at Will, watching him mull over the question.

Will’s right hand drifted towards his middle and stayed here. Hannibal was reminded of how a pregnant woman might cover her belly while moving around, but of course Will likely just had a sore stomach and that was why he was dressed so comfortably.

“No, I think not,” Will answered.

“A glass of water perhaps?” Hannibal offered.

A surprised look stole over Will’s face, but he nodded. “Please. Thank you.”

Setting aside the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc he’d planned on opening, Hannibal opened the small refrigerator he kept in the drinks cabinet and opened it to find a bottle of San Pellegrino. “Sparkling?”

“What, yes, that’s fine,” Will said, distraction clear in his voice.

Keeping his face neutral, Hannibal poured Will a glass of sparkling water and then a glass of wine for himself. Hannibal carried both drinks over and gave Will his water before settling down in his own chair.

“Bad stomach?” Hannibal offered after taking a sip of wine, his concern for Will muting the honey tones that wanted to explode over his palate.

“Hmmpf, I suppose, yes,” Will replied and took a sip of his water, nose twitching at the fizzing bubbles. “Can you smell that?” Will asked, a wry grin coloring his features for a moment and then quickly disappearing. He set the water down on the table beside him.

“There is a different note that was not there the last time that we met.” It had been after handling Ingram, some days ago.

“What do I smell like?”

Hannibal set his glass down on the small side table beside him. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply through his nose, bringing Will’s many scents to his attention once more. The sweetness was still like salted caramel and Hannibal could feel his own mouth watering slightly.

Opening his eyes again, Hannibal said, “Salted caramel is quite prevalent at this moment. Aside from your usual outdoorsy scents, the dogs and the engines you enjoy playing with.”

Will’s eyes went wide at the words “salted caramel” and Hannibal saw him shift minutely in his seat, hand rubbing at his midsection.

“Will, if you want… I could examine you. I was a physician and surgeon long before I became a psychiatrist.” Hannibal rose slowly from his seat as if he was worried he might spook Will.

A series of expressions flitted across Will’s face in that moment. Hesitation, worry, fear—his free hand gripped the arm of his seat, like he was ready to jump up and flee. Hannibal took half steps towards him, clearly telegraphing his movements.

Hannibal gave Will what he hoped was, for him, a sympathetic and reassuring look. “Please, Will. I am concerned for you.”

Something resembling sense seemed to win and Will nodded, letting his right hand drop away from his belly. Stopping between Will’s legs, Hannibal knelt in front of him and it was at this height he could see that there was a slight bulge under the thick woolen sweater, right where Will’s belly should be. Brow creased, Hannibal showed his hands to Will, letting them linger just in front of his distended belly.

“May I?” Hannibal asked.

Will gave a stiff nod. “Yes,” he whispered.

Hannibal set his hands down on the swell of Will’s middle and pressed gently. The mass was solid with a small amount of give and, felt out, was around the size of a pregnant belly at some six months. Starting to really show, hidden well by the sweater—but Hannibal was confused, because there was no way in the world that Will was pregnant, was there? He didn’t say anything as he continued to touch and caress, feeling the bulge. Will hummed nervously, but was not in pain with the slight pressure that Hannibal pressed down with.

A logical conclusion would be that it was some kind of tumor that had grown inside of Will all of a sudden, and he was ready to suggest something as simple as that.

There was movement from inside the bump. Like a baby shifting.

Hannibal’s breath caught in his chest. He glanced up at Will, but Will was looking disinterestedly away, mind elsewhere.

Standing up, Hannibal went over to a cabinet where he still kept a few medical supplies and found his old stethoscope. He came back to Will, kneeling between his legs once more.

“I’m going to lift your tops up, Will,” Hannibal said in a calm voice. Will made no motion or sound of acknowledgment, expression remaining vacant. Hannibal lifted the sweater and t-shirt he wore. Will’s belly was rounded and taut, the skin stretched, but no stretch marks as might have been expected.

Setting the stethoscope’s ear tips in his ears, Hannibal warmed the chest piece with a breath and then set it upon Will’s stomach. He didn’t hear anything for a moment and then there was the unmistakable gentle _bombombom_ of a fetal heartbeat. Moving the stethoscope again, Hannibal picked up the sound of another small heartbeat and then another. He listened for minutes, counting as he went.

There were twenty five heartbeats in all. If this had been a normal human pregnancy, he wouldn’t have expected any of this. One or two heartbeats at six months perhaps. But this?

Hannibal pulled the stethoscope’s ear tips from his ears and set the device over the back of his neck. He studied Will’s belly for a moment longer, looking at its size. Was it just him or had it gotten even bigger while he had been examining Will?

“I’m pregnant, aren’t I?” Will said, voice higher than normal as it veered towards hysteria.

Hannibal looked up and met Will’s eyes. “It appears that you are carrying a clutch,” he offered simply.

“A clutch,” Will stated. He nodded, eyes turning away to look towards the drawn curtains again. “Hannibal… where were you three nights ago?”

Hannibal blushed. He had been enjoying a rather pleasant evening with Alana. “I was with Alana.”

“So, it wasn’t you.”

“Wasn’t me?” Hannibal queried.

Will looked to him, eyes looking down. “I dreamt that you came to me in my sleep. In my home. That tentacles sprang from your body and you… You held me down and did this to me.

“I thought it was a dream. But here we are. I’m pregnant with something and I’m scared that this isn’t me losing my mind, that this is real.”

“We will figure this out,” Hannibal tried to reassure while also pondering in what possible way something like this could have happened.

Will huffed out a breath. “Hannibal, there is something growing inside of me and I have no idea how.”

“I would start by saying that what you thought was a dream was in fact real.”

“It doesn’t remove the fact that I can’t just go to a hospital or a clinic…” Will’s voice trailed off.

Hannibal reached up and cupped Will’s face, during his gaze to his own. “I will help you Will, with whatever you decide. There is no need for you to go through this alone. Though, considering that whatever happened to you seemed to have happened in your home, perhaps Alana or someone might take the dogs for a while and you can stay with me?”

“Won’t Alana object?”

“You have a bad stomach and cannot be left alone. We will both be more comfortable at mine—I am sure Alana will understand.”

Will nodded. “Okay.”

“I will start to make the arrangements.”

***

A few hours later, and with some purchases from a local Walmart in tow—for which Hannibal regretted deeply going to—Hannibal and Will were at Hannibal’s home in Baltimore. Alana had just about bought the excuse offered, though Will had proceeded to vomit noisily into the toilet bowl of Hannibal’s private restroom when Hannibal had made the call, which had made for a convincing case when Alana had asked “what’s that?” and Hannibal had detailed Will’s vomiting.

“Well, she did ask,” Hannibal had said to Will once he’d asked about the phone call.

Piling into Hannibal’s substantial home, Hannibal left the bags of things they’d picked up by the front door (including groceries not from Walmart) and helped Will upstairs, determined to see him settled first. He suspected Will would appreciate a shower or a bath at some point, but he was hardly keeping his eyes open. Food would also be needed, but Will had already admitted to having trouble keeping things down.

Once Will was undressed and in a 5XL t-shirt, and nothing else, blushing when Hannibal had helped undress him, he settled into Hannibal’s bed. Sighing, Will curled up under the clean sheets and looked the most at peace Hannibal had seen him since the start of their appointment several hours earlier.

“Are you comfortable?” Hannibal queried. He got a tired, calm murmur in reply. Satisfied, he went downstairs and to the front door to retrieve the groceries he’d left there.

Putting away what he wasn’t about to use, Hannibal set about pulling together what he needed to make some “chicken soup” as he knew Will would eventually call it. He also turned on his tablet and began researching just what might be happening to Will. He considered it was a form of parasite, but the graphic details (few that they were) that Hannibal had managed to pull from Will suggested no parasite like anyone had ever encountered.

That the creature involved had looked like Hannibal was most alarming indeed, and the suit Will had described was one that had gone missing from the dry cleaners he used, but the week before. Something was out there in the countryside around Wolf Trap and it could make itself appear as Hannibal. He hoped that whatever the creature was would not follow Will to Baltimore, but something told Hannibal that considering the theft of his suit: he wouldn’t be so lucky.

Hannibal stopped pulling ingredients out onto his counter and started to check the doors and windows of his home were all locked securely. It took ten minutes until he was satisfied and then as he reached the kitchen once more, his house phone rang. Picking it up, he recognized Alana’s cell number.

“Hello, Alana,” he greeted as he answered her call.

“The dogs are home safe with me and Applesauce,” Alana said, voice wary. “But I have to say, I am mightily confused by your sudden need to play nursemaid and doctor to Will. It was only just-”

“We have reached an accord,” Hannibal said. “And he truly is quite ill, Alana. I couldn’t leave him home alone. And I don’t believe he could have driven back in his present state.”

Alana sighed loudly. “Well, if you’re sure… Be careful, Hannibal.”

The call ended and Hannibal thought ruefully that Alana didn’t realize just how right she was. Setting the phone aside, Hannibal went back to working on making Black Silkie Chicken broth, aware of where all his knives were as he worked.

A few hours later, the soup was ready and there was no sign of his monstrous doppelgänger. Hannibal took a bowl of the steaming soup up on a tray with a glass of water and a cup of ginseng tea. He hoped that Will might keep all of it down, but he would have to watch him eat, to make sure he paced himself and didn’t go too fast.

Returning to his room, Hannibal set the tray down on a bedside table and turned on a lamp. For a moment, he briefly pondered what Abigail would think of seeing him care for Will like this. He could almost hear her say he was a “big softy” really and that made Hannibal smile.

“What’s funny?” Will asked in a quiet voice, tired eyes turned to Hannibal.

“I was just thinking of what you called this the last time I brought it to you,” Hannibal lied.

Will sniffed. “Chicken soup.”

Hannibal smiled again. “Yes, chicken soup. Now, I expect you to take your time with this.”

Will nodded as he sat up in Hannibal’s bed, rounded belly noticeable under the silky quilt. It was to this roundness that Hannibal’s gaze lingered and he felt feelings stir within him that had little to do with conventional biology. Yes, he wanted a family with Will and Abigail, but seeing Will round like this? It was heady in a way that was unexpected, even in the face of what Will had endured to become like this.

Hannibal placed the tray on Will’s lap and held out a napkin for him. Will took the napkin and let it trail down his chest and stomach and then picked up the spoon. Blowing on his first spoonful, Will didn’t rush that first sip of soup and Hannibal was pleased that his advice was being followed. He watched Will spoon himself several more mouthfuls, eyes flicking between Will’s face and belly.

Will set the spoon down and looked up at Hannibal, frowning. “Feeling paternal, Hannibal?” he asked, as if reading Hannibal’s mind.

Heat rose to Hannibal’s face and he ducked his head. “I’m just glad to see you eating. I... need to take care of a few things in the kitchen and have my own dinner. I’ll be back soon.”

“Right.” Will picked up his soup spoon again. “Thank you, by the way,” he added with what sounded like genuine gratitude.

“It’s no bother,” Hannibal said. “Now, take it slow.”

“Yes, doctor,” Will said, voice light and fond. If Hannibal could have Will speak to him like that more, he would be the happiest man alive.

Back in the kitchen, Hannibal served himself a bowl of the broth and set the rest in a container to cool so that it could go in the refrigerator. He sat himself on a stool beside one of the counters, flicking through web page after web page, looking for some knowledge of what might have happened to Will and how he should proceed.

Halfway through his bowl of broth, Hannibal heard a strange scratching on one of the kitchen windows. Setting his spoon aside, he stood and pulled a long meat knife from his knife block, the weight and smoothness reassuring as the metal handle warmed in his palm. He stepped towards the window and looked out into the dark, turning off the kitchen lights as he reached the switch on the wall.

Peering outside, eyes adjusting, Hannibal could see nothing that could have made the noise that he’d heard. It was just his garden beyond the darkened glass. Then the scratching sound started again, distant this time and coming from the dining room. Turning off the lights as he walked through the house, Hannibal stalked to the dining room and looked out through the double glass doors that opened up onto his garden.

A shape, seemingly humanoid, lurked beyond the glass, a blackness around it that went beyond the darkness of night. Hannibal knew it was the creature that had attacked Will. And the jaw bone silhouetted by the moonlit sky was all too familiar. His doppelgänger was much like him. Changing the hold of the knife in his hand, Hannibal stepped forward and unlocked the right hand door, waiting to see if the creature would open it and step inside.

Stepping backwards, the dining table at his back, Hannibal waited, his heartbeat slowing as he prepared for the hunt. There was no way this creature was leaving Hannibal’s home alive or in one piece, for it had made a grievous error:

It had touched Will Graham.


	3. Will

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No outright smut here, just... growing _appreciation_.
> 
> Sorry. Not sorry for bad puns.

An angry shout woke Will. His dinner tray was settled on the bedside table and he felt warm and full. He didn’t really want to move but another shout, sounding like it was from Hannibal, had Will crawling out from under the covers and getting out of bed, ignoring his glasses on the bedside table. The thick socks on his feet slid on the perfectly waxed floorboards and he had to jam his feet into a pair of Hannibal’s slippers to keep upright. The plain red t-shirt was like an overly large dress on his frame, but the swell of his belly was still visible.

Will felt bigger, somehow already, than when he’d walked into Hannibal’s office that evening, but Will pushed all thoughts on that to one side. He picked up an iron fire poker from the immense fireplace that dominated one side of the bedroom and tiptoed to the landing, ignoring how the movement made him feel just a touch nauseous.

“You will not have him!” snarled a voice that sounded like Hannibal, but so too had the dream-monster Hannibal sounded like Hannibal.

Raising the poker in front of himself, Will stepped down the stairs, keeping his steps light.

“I beg to differ,” growled another voice that sounded like Hannibal.

Will’s balance was off with the size of his belly having shifted his center of gravity, but he managed to reach the bottom of the stairs with no one the wiser. The commotion was coming from the dining room and he crept through the house slowly, poker still raised and ready.

Peeking his head around the dining room doorway, Will’s eyes slowly tried to adjust to the darkness there, but at first all he could see were two vague forms struggling on the floor. He reached around the wall, found a light switch, and flipped the lights back on.

Eyes going wide, Will stood open-mouthed as he watched Hannibal struggle with the tentacled, and very naked, Hannibal that had been in his bedroom. The monster doppelgänger was a writhing mass bearing down on his human Hannibal, who was pinned to the floor. Blood leaked across the polished wooden floor boards, though Will wasn’t sure whose it was until he saw the large open gashes open in the creature’s sides.

Composure, or what little he’d had, left Will for faraway pastures. Will shakily walked over to the struggling pair, dodging the writhing tentacles intent on strangling the real Hannibal. Will hefted the fire poker just as the doppelgänger realized they had company, and then Will brought it smashing down, cracking the creature’s head like it was a pinata. Its skull split in three pieces, bursting like an overripe tomato—eyeballs spinning one way, brains all the ways and teeth scattering like buckshot.

Will felt as if he was watching it all in slow motion, his thoughts slowing to a crawl too, as he watched Hannibal close his eyes to avoid the wave of flesh, only closing his own eyes just in time to avoid the gore. The splatter of brains, skull and blood washed over Will, covering his face, hands, arms, neck, t-shirt and bare legs. His nice thick socks and Hannibal’s slippers were definitely ruined. Will wiped bits of brain away from his mouth, smearing more blood across his arm.

The tentacles wiggled and writhed for a second and then finally shuddered to a stop. Hannibal batted them away as Will held onto the side of the dining room table and offered his free hand towards Hannibal.

“I think it’s dead,” Will said as he helped give Hannibal the leverage he needed to slide out from under the doppelgänger’s carcass.

Grunting, Hannibal slid along the floor, the body falling off of him. “I would tend to agree, and yet I cannot help but feel that perhaps we should cremate it in order to be sure.”

“Probably should.” Will’s eyes tracked over Hannibal as he tried to see if he’d been hurt. “You hurt?”

“Only my pride and home decor plans.”

Looking at the body, Will tried not to think about where those tentacles had been only recently, but he felt the phantom press of a sturdy appendage at his pucker and the fullness of his throat. Shuddering Will looked away.

“What was it doing here?” Will asked.

Hannibal leaned against the table. “This is speculation, but perhaps it was looking for its mate. To protect its clutch.”

The word mate sank to the bottom of Will’s stomach, making him shudder for a different reason to his sense memory. Will was about to say something in reply when his stomach clenched painfully. He had to run for Hannibal’s downstairs restroom as another wave of pain and nausea hit, only just making it to the toilet bowl in time.

Chucking up, Will felt a tiny bit of relief when Hannibal joined him in the small space of the restroom, leaning through the door frame, and rubbing Will’s back in small soothing circles. Distantly, Will was aware of Hannibal going “tsk, tsk”.

“Whatever shall we do with you?” Hannibal said in a soft voice that brought unshed tears to Will’s eyes.

“Take me out back,” Will joked and then heaved, but nothing came out of him. Stomach finally empty, he slowly climbed up and pulled the chain. Hannibal stayed out of the way as Will washed up, splashing water on his face, though Hannibal passed him a bottle of water for him to rinse out his mouth.

“You truly are not keeping anything down,” Hannibal said, worry clear.

Will rubbed his bump and caught Hannibal looking at him as he did. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the intense scrutiny—it made him feel insecure and flustered, hot and scared at the same time. His stomach rumbled.

Will felt hungry, but the idea of food also seemed repellent. And then he caught a whiff of sickly sweetness.

“I think you need to dispose of the body,” Will stated, head turned towards the dining room as he left the restroom.

“Allow me to help you clean up and get back into bed, and I will then do so.” Hannibal held out his arm for Will.

Rolling his eyes, Will reached out for Hannibal’s arm and allowed himself to be led back upstairs. He was secretly glad for the extra support, his head was light from the lack of food and he suspected he wouldn’t have made it up the stairs without Hannibal’s help.

It was embarrassing for Will when Hannibal helped him change out of the stained t-shirt and shower in the en suite. Movements leading and insisting, but the more Hannibal touched Will’s skin and tended to him, the less embarrassed Will felt and the more flustered he grew. His skin tingled under each careful caress. Body, despite everything, responding, but Hannibal discretely ignored that part. Though Will was sure he saw Hannibal strain against his dress slacks at one point. But Hannibal remained just a friend, helping a sick friend, hosing Will down and soaping him up quickly and efficiently, not minding how the edge of the spray dampened his shirt.

“Here,” Hannibal said as Will got comfortable in bed again, all clean and dressed in a new oversized blue t-shirt, handing him a bottle of water. “Drink slowly. I will endeavor to return soon.”

“Yes, I know how to look after myself,” Will replied. Hannibal gave him a look which reminded Will that Hannibal was convinced Will had no idea how to look after himself.

Will wrinkled his nose, the odor of the corpse stretching through the house. “It’s like burnt sugar.”

“I will handle it.” Hannibal smiled. “Rest,” he ordered.

“Sure, rest. And then we can also figure out what we’re doing about this,” Will said, pointing at his bump.

Hannibal gave a curt nod. “I am still researching that part.”

“Okay, but can you research faster? I’m not sure we want to see me giving birth to more of what we saw downstairs.”

Hannibal huffed a small laugh. “Quite... I shall leave you to get some sleep.”

Will yawned and nodded, snuggling deeper under the quilt.

Hannibal stalked out of the bedroom.

***

Hunger woke Will and made him sit up, curling over the bump, which still seemed even bigger than it did before he fell asleep, now approaching something like full-term if there was only one baby. There was no sign of Hannibal in the lamp lit bedroom, but the burnt sugar smell of the creature was gone at least. Pulling the covers back, Will settled his right hand on his belly as he wiggled out of the bed.

Hannibal had left the slippers in easy reach again and Will slid his feet into them. He eased himself up onto his feet, hand on belly, and padded through the bedroom and onto the landing. There was no sign or sound of Hannibal, but Will didn’t think much of that, though hoped the monster was no longer around.

Creeping down the stairs, Will chanced a quick look in the dining room and saw nothing there, the floor already looking pristine. For a second, Will wondered what Hannibal had used to clean the floorboards and then his stomach rumbled.

Attention drawn in the direction of the kitchen, Will headed on in there. He saw the remnants of a hastily cooked meal beside the stove, the fat in the frying pan still liquid. As Will waddled about, he eventually noticed the door to the cellar was open. He could hear Hannibal moving around down there and wondered, for a moment, if that was where Bev had found out what Hannibal was really capable of.

Anger flaring, Will was just about ready to storm down the stairs but a wave of hunger rolled over him and instead Will turned to the large gleaming refrigerator that dominated the kitchen. He walked over and opened the door, looking at the shelves.

Will ignored the tub of chicken soup on one shelf and looked to the wrapped cuts of raw meat that lined one shelf. The pinkness and red made Will’s mouth water and, before he knew what he was doing, he reached out and picked out what looked like kidneys. Will ripped the plastic open with his teeth. Hungrily pulling a kidney out of the packet and tearing at the cold wet flesh, relishing the tang of the natural salts in the meat, chewing as blood dribbled down his chin.

It took only a few mouthfuls for Will to finish the first kidney and then he moved onto the second, jaw working methodically and fast as he chewed his way through the flesh. A part of him wondered if he was eating a human kidney, another part stared on in horror as he continued to eat raw meat. Finishing the second kidney, Will set the empty plastic down on the counter and rubbed at his belly as he gave a hearty belch.

“Is everything alright, Will?” Hannibal asked from Will’s left, snapping him out of the mild food coma he was experiencing.

Startled, Will looked from the bloody wrap on the counter top to his bloody hand and then reached up to his mouth feeling the tacky stickiness of the blood that had run down his chin. He looked back to Hannibal, back to the discarded wrap, back to the open refrigerator and then back to Hannibal.

“Will?” Hannibal prompted, taking a slow cautious step to Will, hands raised as if he worried he would spook him.

“I… just ate a pair… of kidneys,” Will said slowly, disbelief making his voice tremble.

Hannibal’s eyes darkened. “Raw?”

“Do I look like I just flambéed them?” Will snapped, voice getting higher with panic.

“It must be the clutch,” Hannibal said, eyes cast towards Will’s bump and then back to his face. Taking a few steps forward, Hannibal reached the refrigerator door and closed it.

Will let out a slow breath, trying to steady the growing panic he was feeling. “Did the ‘clutch’ just convince me to eat… long… pig?” he asked, staring right at Hannibal.

Mouth quirking for the briefest second, before his patented calm visage took over once more, Hannibal looked to the empty packet on the counter top and then met Will’s gaze. “It clearly had everything the clutch needed.”

Will swallowed hard, but did not feel like he needed to vomit. “Speaking of—please say that you’ve dealt with the creature that did this to me and have an idea on how we can remove all of these?” Will asked in a rush, hand on belly. He glanced at the corner of Hannibal’s mouth, where a smudge of something had gotten there.

Hannibal licked his lips, tongue flicking out to the corner of his mouth, removing the small, dark stain. “The creature has been examined and disposed of. As for what we should do about your present condition, if you would permit what might seem to be an unorthodox method…”

“Just tell me. No need to mince words,” Will spat.

“We could allow the clutch to pass,” Hannibal suggested.

“Pass?”

“I admit, I have found little, to be blunt, _nothing_ , on your condition. However, if we consider the life and reproductive cycles of numerous parasitic organisms that seek humans as hosts… And consider how the clutch came to be inside of you in the first instance, I feel that if we just wait for the clutch to emerge from whence it came-”

“You’re saying I should just wait to give birth to, to…” Will felt faint.

“Let nature take its course, yes.”

The dead look Will gave Hannibal had made many people over the years doubt whether they should be within ten foot of Will. Hannibal didn’t even flinch.

“There’s nothing natural about this,” Will said in a low growl.

“Regardless, we should wait.”

The idea of waiting did not fill Will with the utmost confidence or reassurance. Though the idea of allowing Hannibal near him with sharp objects was also very unsettling. But he didn’t see any other choice—he wasn’t exactly sure how else the things were getting out of him and he wasn’t sure he wanted to ask Hannibal to take a direct course of action. He had no idea what giving birth would be like… or that he would make it through the process in one piece.

At some point, Will had considered whether he should just go to a hospital but the freakish nature of what was happening to him—and the potential psych referral—kept Will in Hannibal’s home. Standing there in Hannibal’s kitchen, a growing hunger for uncooked human flesh slowly unfurling inside of him again, Will looked to the refrigerator.

“I could cook you up something?” Hannibal suggested. “You seem to be keeping that snack down rather well.”

Will just about baulked at the kidneys being called a snack, but he also wasn’t sure if cooking the meat was what he wanted. Though he could tell that in his own way, Hannibal wanted to dote on Will—look after him even.

Stomach giving a loud rumble, hunger starting to bubble up again, Will sighed and nodded. “Okay, you can cook something for me.”

“I assure you, I will keep the dish simple… nothing too ostentatious. Just simple, home cooked food.”

Narrowing his eyes, Will cocked his head to the side and said with a smirk, “Can you even do, ‘simple’?”

Hannibal gave a small smile that if given to anyone else would imply a now shortened lifespan. “Please, Will, I am just as capable as anyone in taking pleasure in the flavors and aromas that are at the heart of all foods.” Closing the distance between them, Hannibal slowly reached out and placed his hand on top of Will’s hand that was on his stomach.

As if sensing the contact, the clutch shifted inside of Will thrumming lightly with intent underneath Hannibal’s hand and for the briefest moment, Will looked down at his belly in wonder. And then reality snapped back and what was happening to his body, making him shift uncomfortably on his feet.

“Hmm, they seem eager for more,” Hannibal murmured, before he said, “Perhaps you could wash up while I cook? It won’t take long.”

The suggestion to go clean up sounded so sickeningly domestic and normal that Will did a double take for a moment. Everything about this situation running up to that fateful night and since had been so far removed from normal, that Will was finding it impossible to believe that he was about to go and so something as everyday as washing up before a midnight snack.

“Okay,” Will agreed. He waddled out of the kitchen and made his way back upstairs, heading for Hannibal’s en suite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While 2/3 of the way through drafting this chapter, I had a brainwave about where I wanted this story to go, and changed direction a little here... to build up for something bigger in the next chapter.


	4. Hannibal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags updated this chapter.
> 
> Any typos are because I've been nearly falling asleep while trying to finish this chapter today.

Cleaning up the pan he should have cleaned earlier, Hannibal thought of what he could cook for Will. Hannibal was fine with feeding Will’s need for human flesh—that was certainly not an issue for him—but he was perhaps concerned about Will eating it raw, especially in his present condition. There were some fresh lungs that would be good pan fried. And if cooked meat didn’t sit well with Will, Hannibal would serve him part of the leg he had available.

Hannibal wondered at the cut up creature he’d fed into a bath of acid just an hour ago, or most of it. Looking like him, sounding like him—dressing like him. It was clear that the doppelgänger had picked to disguise itself as Hannibal to get closer to Will. That the creature had somehow sensed a connection between Hannibal and Will, a connection that Hannibal had been thinking was more one sided, but there as he washed the dishes he concluded that it wasn’t as one sided as he’d thought. Maybe the monster sensed something in Will that Hannibal had, until now, only hoped and longed for, seeing the vaguest flickers of veiled existence.

Hannibal worked efficiently in the kitchen, once the dishes were clean, pulling together tender fried pieces of lung in a light gravy sauce. Returning to the bedroom with a lap tray, the meal set out on it and a fresh bottle of water, Hannibal hoped that Will would keep the food down.

Stirring from his sleep, Will huffed as he sat up in bed, eyes blearily watching Hannibal as he set the tray down.

“How are you feeling?” Hannibal asked as he placed the bedside table, carefully avoiding Will’s glasses, and realizing that Will’s belly was now too large for the tray to be practical.

Yawning, Will’s right hand came to rest on his stretched belly, the bump visible under the bed covers. “Tired, but famished.”

“Before you eat, please allow me to just examine you a moment,” Hannibal asked. He reached down beside the small table and picked up his doctor’s bag.

Will rolled his eyes, but pushed the bed covers down and lifted up his t-shirt. A blush bloomed across Will’s cheeks as Hannibal sat on the bed beside him and used the stethoscope. Pretending not to notice how flustered Will was, Hannibal listened and counted the heartbeats. There were only twelve where the had once been twenty five—he listened again and counted to be sure.

“Is everything okay?” Will asked slowly.

Sitting up, Hannibal took off the stethoscope and placed it back in his doctor’s bag. “It appears that there are now only twelve left in the clutch.”

Will frowned. “Weren’t there twenty five before?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to them?” Will winced and then rubbed at his belly. “I think one just moved.”

“May I?” Hannibal asked, raising his hand toward Will’s belly.

“Sure,” Will said with a shrug.

As Hannibal touched Will’s taut, bare skin, Hannibal noted the way Will’s eyes went wide and dark. Hannibal tenderly stroked Will’s stomach, picking up a change in Will’s scent that had the light muskiness of arousal.

Hannibal gave Will a thoughtful look. “As to what happened to part of your clutch? I suspect intrauterine cannibalism.”

“They ate each other?”

“It is not unheard of in other species, where the strongest offspring eat the weaker ones during gestation, gaining valuable nutrients in the process.”

Will looked down at this belly. “Perhaps it was because I wasn’t eating enough?” he asked with a surprising note of concern.

Hannibal petted Will’s belly one last time and then turned his attention to the food he’d brought with him. “It is possible. But everything with this is pure conjecture. Would you like to eat?”

Will glanced at the plate of food beside him. “Please,” he said in a tired voice.

Rather than just assuming Will couldn’t cope with the tray, Hannibal tried to balance it for Will on Will’s lap. The tray wobbled and began to pitch over, with Hannibal only just catching it in time.

“Allow me,” Hannibal said, setting the tray back down on the table and picking up the knife and fork he’d also carried up.

Hannibal cut a piece of the lung, now just the right temperature, and pushed the fork through it. He held it up for Will, and Will leaned a little forwards to tease the meat from the fork’s tines. Chewing slowly and then swallowing, Will said little as he allowed Hannibal to feed him his meal. There was no doubt that Will was the one choosing to do this, choosing to be fed, because they could have both, after all, returned to the kitchen or dining room to make it easier for Will to eat. But they stayed. It was slightly hypnotic, watching the way Will’s delicate mouth worked and Hannibal did his best not to become too distracted.

Piece by piece, Will ate what was fed to him, taking sips of water, and letting out a sigh of contentment once the lung was all gone. He gave a small belch and Hannibal smiled as he stood up to take the tray away.

“Thank you,” Will said. “That was… delicious.”

Ducking his head for a second, Hannibal looked to Will and said, “You’re most welcome. Why don’t you try to get some more rest? I will be back soon enough.”

Yawning, Will nodded in agreement. “What about you? This is your bed, isn’t it?”

“I will retire to one of my guest rooms once I have tidied the kitchen.”

Will gave Hannibal an appraising look, eyes traveling over Hannibal as if he was stripping him with his gaze. “I would hate to deprive you of your own bed, Hannibal… perhaps there is enough room for both of us?”

It was Hannibal’s turn to blush. He would never push for such things from Will, but the offer was more than he would have hoped for. “As you wish. I will be back soon.” And with that, Hannibal stalked off back down the stairs and to the kitchen.

Once there, he only just answered the house phone before it could disturb Will. Seeing Alana on the caller ID, Hannibal prepared himself for all manner of questioning and needling.

“Alana, it’s late,” Hannibal chided, the time gone midnight.

“I just… wanted to call and find out h-ow the patient is do-ing,” Alana slurred, telling Hannibal she was several drinks down. Unasked was the question of whether Hannibal had concocted the whole thing and was just stringing Alana along as he used a flimsy excuse to bed Will.

“Will is resting, hopefully. You’ve been drinking.”

“And?”

“Are the dogs okay?”

“They’re fine,” Alana nearly snarled.

Hannibal decided to stop dancing. “Is there something you wish to say to me, Alana?”

Silence stretched out between them and then Alana asked, “Are you sleeping with Will?”

For a moment, Hannibal felt his composure slipping (just a notch) and then he took a deep breath through his nose as he pulled his mask back on.

“No.”

“But you want to,” Alana observed, voice going higher as anger set in. “You want to sleep with Will... Hell, Hannibal… Will sen-t someone to kill you!”

Hannibal had not expected his relationship with Alana to change or sour so soon. Its decline was inevitable, he knew that, but the situation he found himself in was completely unexpected.

“Alana, you are drunk. Perhaps we can talk about this in the morning?” Hannibal suggested.

“No. Hannibal… Now is when we’re going to talk about this.”

Bristling at Alana’s insistence, Hannibal reached a hand to his middle rubbing absentmindedly at his stomach. “What is it you want Alana?”

“The truth.”

Hannibal weighed his few options. There was little to be gained from remaining in a relationship with Alana if she was going to be doubting Hannibal during every second of it. But Alana was also far more easily led along than Will. To push Alana away there and then made some things easier and made others more difficult.

“The truth, Alana,” Hannibal began, “is that Will holds a special place in my life. And I would not, could never, turn away from him.”

“So you want to sleep with him… bo-y, have I been an idiot.” Alana let out a dark chuckle. “I’ll keep the dogs with me until Will… com-es to collect them. But I am not being pulled along like some… kind of puppet, Hannibal. How rude of… yo-u to j-ust think you can take Will back ho-me-”

Hannibal pursed his mouth. “Will is unwell.”

“Doesn’t matter. This… was going to happen sooner… or later. And I for one am glad that… it’s sooner.”

Hannibal decided it was time to go for the proverbial jugular. “I want to sleep with Will,” Hannibal said, hand sliding from his stomach to press at his crotch—the movement subconscious.

“Then I think we are done, Hannibal… I’ll look after Will’s dogs until… he’s well enough. But us? That ends now.” Alana sighed loudly. “Were you ev-er even interested in me?”

“Alana-”

“No, wait. Don’t. I can’t sta-nd any more lies. It’s over. Good night, Hannibal.”

The call ended and Hannibal pulled the handset away from his ear, looking at the lifeless device. He stared from the phone to his other hand and was surprised that he was touching himself. With some effort he pulled his hand away, quivering as he did. He set the house phone back in its cradle and marveled for a moment at the lack of regret or guilt he felt at things ending with Alana.

Looking to the kitchen, he set about tidying up, ears trained for the sound of Will having to quickly head for the en suite upstairs.

***

Hannibal was sat beside his bed, resting his eyes, sitting on a high backed chair he’d carried in from another bedroom. He had thought of climbing into bed with Will, but seeing the other man asleep, he’d thought better of disturbing him and doing so without his immediate permission, regardless of what Will had said earlier.

Time crept on slowly in the dark hours, as Hannibal dreamed in a corner of his mind palace. It was a bright afternoon from his childhood, an afternoon spent in the grounds of his family’s home. The trees were green and the sky was blue—Mischa was but a baby and Hannibal worried after her as she wobbled around on two very determined legs. His mother and father were somewhere in the background though, ashamedly to Hannibal, their faces here not as strong as they once were.

In the distance, through the tall grasses of the meadow that had yet to be mowed, Hannibal saw a figure approach. It took a moment for him to realize that it was himself, tall and well-dressed, a darkness creeping around his edges, like an inky night that wanted to waft out and consume all.

Hannibal picked up Mischa and started towards the figures of his parents who were sitting under a tree, settled on a picnic blanket. But as Hannibal’s own short legs pumped to get away from the blackness, it swallowed him up and Mischa, his parents and the meadow were swiftly taken away.

***

“Hannibal?” asked a worried voice that took Hannibal a moment to place. Will was calling to him and Hannibal struggled to remember that Will was in his bed.

Hannibal breathed, drinking in the sweet scent that was undeniably Will, feeling the brush of curls on his face. That gave Hannibal pause and he opened his eyes to find that he was curled around Will’s back, arms resting across the other man’s bump. He gently tested his legs, but felt an unusual tingling sensation down his them and as he tried to shift without alarming Will further, Hannibal felt like he was touching the entire world at once—every sinew of Will, every fiber in the bed cover, every air molecule brushing past—all of it.

“Hannibal, I think something is wrong,” Will said, voice edged with uncertainty as the bedside lamp was turned on.

“Will, I-” Hannibal started and then stopped. He cast his gaze down their entwined bodies, and saw a multitude of long, black limbs instead of his own two legs. Breath stalling in his chest, Hannibal pushed away from Will and instead of falling off of the bed, he glided onto the floor, body aloft on a sea of limbs.

Will struggled to get up and out of the bed, but he managed to untangle himself from the covers and stand on the floor. His feet slipped and slid as he stepped back towards the bedroom door, eyes open wide in fear. “Hannibal, what is going on?”

Thoughts and ideas worked hard to catch up with what had happened and to bring Hannibal to some kind of hypothesis. Slowly, Hannibal understood with a grim certainty that his own late night snack had had an unintended consequence.

A tentacle slowly coiled across the floor and under the bed, sliding toward Will.

“I have grown tentacles, apparently,” Hannibal stated as if he were talking of the weather.

“I can see that… how?”

Hannibal allowed his mask to slip. “I partook of the creature that had attacked you.”

Will blanched. “How do I know it’s you?”

“I have had every opportunity to ravage you in your sleep, and yet I have not. It’s little reassurance, I know. But if my doppelgänger’s past behavior is any true indication… I am not it.” Hannibal pursed his lips. “Trust me enough that even I might perhaps make a mistake… taking liberties with my food. Though it’s rare for me to underestimate my opponent.”

Will hesitated by the doorway. “You certainly sound like Hannibal. And you’re right, you could have attacked me already if you were indeed _it_.”

The limbs sprawled around Hannibal and curled this way and that. Hannibal disliked the look of fear and apprehension Will had reserved for him. Hannibal closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. Breathing deeply and with some mental effort, Hannibal focused on his new limbs, seeing if he had any real control over them. Slowly but surely, he felt them melt away until his body had only two legs again.

“I’m sorry about that,” Hannibal apologized, knowing how lamely it sounded as he opened his eyes again.

Will gave him a hard, searching look. “I… Need to use the bathroom.” He hurried around the outskirts of the bedroom and slipped into the en suite. He closed the door behind him and left Hannibal to himself and the tentacles.

Glancing down his body, he saw no trace of the tentacles that had clearly been there only moments before. He worried at his lip and looked to the shut bathroom door. And for the first time in a long while, Hannibal grew worried. He wondered whether Will was fine, whether the tentacles were a permanent feature and whether Will would ever want to be close to him.

But Hannibal’s main concern was ensuring that Will survived whatever else the clutch had in store for him.

***

Hannibal decided his best course of action was to sleep in one of his guest bedrooms. He left the door open in case Will called for him during what remained of the night. With some difficulty—and with a lingering sensation that his body was more than it had been, like his skin was overly stretched—he fell into a dreamless sleep in the unfamiliar bed.

Heat blooming across his skin awoke him some time later, the new sweet caramel scent of Will cloying to his nostrils. Nuzzling into soft curls, Hannibal slowly opened his eyes to the pre-dawn light filtering into the room, and found that Will had climbed into bed with him at some point. He was curled around Will. Every single limb. Not usually a heavy sleeper, Hannibal was surprised that Will had not awoken him, but it was indeed Will who had slipped into Hannibal’s place of rest and not the other way round.

“Will?” Hannibal whispered, worried that Will had somehow not come to the bed of his own volition. Carefully, Hannibal tried to withdraw all his limbs, though it took a lot of focus, their manner of working not yet second nature to him.

Grunting, Will pushed back against Hannibal, pressing his ass between the mass of limbs approximately somewhere that felt like where Hannibal’s crotch was still lurking. The press and drag was agonizingly good, making Hannibal feel dizzy with need. Will’s right hand dropped on top of Hannibal’s right hand and dragged it down to Will’s length, pressing it against a growing hardness that peeked out from under Will’s immense belly.

“ _Will?_ ” Hannibal said more loudly and urgently, worried Will was about to do something he didn’t want to do.

Gasping now as he grinded back and used Hannibal’s hand, Will said, “Need you.” He pushed back harder. “Please.”

Hannibal understood why Will needed this. To instigate and be the one to make demands. To regain control. And while Hannibal wished he was wrapped around Will under different circumstances, he couldn't escape how he had ached for this for so long (just sans tentacles).

As if responding to Will’s need alone, Hannibal’s tentacles curled around Will further, one in particular smoothing its way up Will’s side and then pushing its way into Will’s mouth. The sudden heat made Hannibal groan and he felt the unusual sensation of dripping something into Will, the scent of salted caramel becoming stronger. Focusing on that one tentacle, Hannibal began to gently thrust it in and out of Will’s mouth, making Will whine and moan as he did.

A tentacle nudged Hannibal’s hand away from Will’s length, and ripped open the shorts Will had put on. Hannibal rubbed his face against Will’s curls, scenting him as he did, while this other tentacle wrapped around Will and started to stroke his hardness.

Reaching a shaky hand out, Will began to caress one tentacle that felt different to all the rest. Tender and ready to burst. Peering over the top of Will’s head, Hannibal saw that this particular limb ended in a flared tip, with a small slit that was slowly leaking a pearly white substance. It was a sex organ—Hannibal was sure—and it made him moan low and deep against Will’s head to feel it touched. Hannibal could still distantly feel his own human organ hard and leaking, but the tentacle was more present for him.

Responding to some cue from Will, Hannibal withdrew the tentacle in Will’s mouth. Will shuddered beside him, hand tugging more eagerly on Hannibal’s new sex organ.

“Please,” Will begged.

Hannibal moaned and asked, “What… do you want, darling boy?”

“I want you… to fuck me,” Will gasped as one tentacle brushed its length across hardening nipples that Hannibal could feel through the thin stretch of the over sized t-shirt.

How Hannibal was not losing his mind with the hundreds of sensations he felt as he caressed the warm silkiness of Will, experiencing him in ways he had never even dreamed of: Hannibal did not know. What he did know was that he needed to be inside of Will Graham—yesterday. With some mental effort he dragged his sex away from Will’s hands and pushed it down between Will’s thighs, two other (thinner) tentacles slithering in to open Will’s legs, while several other tentacles cradled Will and his bulk comfortably, his cock still encircled.

Pushing against Will’s hole, Hannibal was surprised to find it opening up to him with ease as his sex contorted and narrowed to slip easily inside, slicking the way as it did. The ease with which the slick tip pushed into Will, drawing gasps from them both, was filed away by the part of Hannibal’s mind that was still wondering just how the clutch was to be delivered and was also cataloging how Will’s transformation was similar to a human pregnancy in some ways. The sudden urge to engage in sex being one such similarity reminiscent of the third trimenster.

The rest of Hannibal’s thoughts screamed eagerly in pure want and need. His arms joined the tentacle across Will’s chest, and Hannibal began to thrust in and out of Will, the tentacle slowly growing in girth as it fucked him. As Hannibal _fucked_ Will—an event that Hannibal had difficulty believing was happening as he defiled his sweet boy beyond imagination.

“Fuck!” Will cried as Hannibal began to pick up the pace, the bed creaking and shifting with them.

Hannibal uselessly shifted his hips with each thrust as the tentacles did all the real work. His mouth ran away with him as he kissed Will’s neck and he murmured sweet nothings into his skin and hair in half a dozen languages.

“Mylimasis…” Hannibal half-groaned, the words like a prayer as he felt his own pleasure spiraling upwards. Burying his face in the heated crook of Will’s neck, Hannibal smelled Will’s scent changing just the minutest amount, a muskiness drawing forth.

The long undulating length of Hannibal’s sex fattened further, each tease and thrust gracing that nub inside of Will which Hannibal was vaguely aware of touching. Beside him, body trembling and sweating, Will panted, lower body eagerly moving back and forth with Hannibal’s insistent probing.

“Hannibal, I-” Will started and was cut off as the force of his orgasm gripped him, his body tightening on Hannibal as it did. The power of Will’s climax left him scrabbling to hold onto Hannibal and his tentacles, hands gripping tight as he shuddered through it.

The hot thick wetness of Will’s release coated the tentacle that had been stroking Will’s length. Hannibal brought that tentacle to his lips, Will weakly looking over his shoulder to watch. Hannibal sucked the come from the tentacle, purring as he did, the salty taste of Will bursting over his tongue.

“Oh my god,” Will whimpered, over stimulation settling in.

Catching Will’s heated look, Hannibal felt himself tensing (the wet heat of Will finally too much), and then he cried out as he spilled into Will, filling Will’s hole with wave after wave of release. Hannibal shook and grunted, all limbs slipping and sliding as they tried to hold on as his pleasure crested.

Vision whiting out, Hannibal opened his eyes a few minutes later, with just his human arms and legs hooked around Will.

Will patted Hannibal’s hand. “That was… something else.”

“I find myself agreeing,” Hannibal said shakily. He kissed Will’s neck. “I should clean us up.”

Will replied with a nod and Hannibal carefully unwound himself from him. Heading into the guest room’s en suite, he found a washcloth and dampened it with warm water. Heading back into the bedroom, Hannibal saw Will was curling around his pregnant belly, pain now contorting his face.

“Will?” Hannibal queried, stepping forward.

“It’s… time,” Will gritted out.


	5. Will

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soft-ish Hannigram.

“Ahh!” Will grunted in pain. His abdomen felt like every single nerve was on fire as all of the muscles below his stomach spasmed and contracted, like hot bullets sinking into his flesh. He had tried not to think too much about how it would feel, but as Hannibal positioned him on the guest bed, a cream-colored vinyl sheet now covering the mattress, Will couldn’t think of much else—except for the part of him that feared what was soon to emerge.

“I could administer an epidural?” Hannibal suggested calmly, tentacles out of sight. And of course Hannibal had access to a cocktail of drugs that could be used for an epidural, all in his home. That he normally used them on some of his victims made perfect sense to the part of Will that was meant to be working with Jack to entrap Hannibal, but with every passing second that part of him was growing quieter and quieter.

Will eyed Hannibal with trepidation and a low burning fear. Yes he and Hannibal had been most intimate not that long ago, but discovering that Hannibal had taken the step of eating a part of a monster and then been transformed by the act? It was like realizing Hannibal was a cannibal, all over again. Will felt revulsion but also awe that Hannibal would do something so audacious.

And, knowing Hannibal was Hannibal? That had made being fucked by him a far more pleasant experience than what he had gone through with the doppelgänger.

“AHHH!” Will bit out, all thoughts of his recent intimacy with Hannibal being pushed away as the pains of labor intensified until all Will could register were the confines of the bed.

Towels and water appeared from somewhere, a cool washcloth was placed on Will’s head.

“Will, do you want something for the pain?” Hannibal asked again, voice distant over the rush of blood in Will’s ears.

Thoughts rolling together, Will remembered that Hannibal had only said moments ago that he could have an epidural. He was about to say yes, but a big contraction shook through him, leaving him gasping for air. There wasn’t time. Hannibal bent down between Will’s open legs and then looked over the top of Will’s huge bump.

“There’s one coming,” Hannibal said and ducked back down.

Will screamed but his body somehow knew what to do. As he bore down, a wave of wet mucus rushed out of him, the dampness a contrast to the fevered pain of his body. He screamed again and pushed, feeling the clutch shift inside of him.

“Atta boy!” Hannibal praised.

Gasping on an empty scream, Will felt one of the creatures finally empty from him. He coughed, snot running down his face, sweat slicking his whole body. Before he had a chance to ask anything of Hannibal, another contraction wracked him, making him scream and curse.

“FUCK!” Will yelled, eyes screwed tight, feeling like he was going to be split in two.

Hannibal gave more words of encouragement, but Will couldn’t understand them as he bore down once more, feet sliding a little on the vinyl sheet as more fluids leaked from him. Something thin and smooth wrapped around his ankle, but it was like a whisper on his skin—light and air.

“That’s it!” Hannibal encouraged. For the briefest moment, Will wanted to kick Hannibal in the face, even though Will’s pregnancy was not his doing—the pain lowering his tolerance for just about anything.

“AHHHHHHHHHH!” Will screamed, feeling a third body rush out of him. He panted and tried to catch his breath, but his lungs were balls of fire and air was hard to come by.

Another thin limb skated over his ankle, but Will paid it no mind as he continued to give birth to the rest of the clutch. He knew Hannibal had said it was twelve, but he couldn’t count as his body worked on automatic pilot to birth these entities of darkness into the world.

“Just one more push!” Hannibal coaxed an indeterminate amount of time later.

Taking as deep a breath as he could manage, body burning, Will howled into the pre-dawn and pushed with the last of his strength. He pushed and pushed and pushed, screaming with the effort. The creature slid out onto the sheet, and Will looked wearily over the top of his still distended belly seeing only the crown of Hannibal’s head.

Will considered passing out and then saw Hannibal walking around the bed, arms laden with shifting, deep black smoke. He tracked the movement, taking a moment to comprehend that Hannibal was cradling the clutch of impossible creatures that he had brought into the world. There was a gleam in Hannibal’s eyes that Will didn’t know what to make of but he was too tired to care more than a passing thought.

“Twelve,” Hannibal stated simply.

Nodding, Will reached a trembling hand towards the shifting mass, a smoky black tentacle unfurling from one end and curling around Will’s little finger. The smallest paternal feeling, for a moment, settled in Will’s chest and then without warning, the mass went POOF! Smoke spilling out like a candle snuffed out, spiraling up into the air and then dissipating into nothing as if they had never been there.

Hannibal gasped, eyes looking from his empty arms to Will’s stomach. Following Hannibal’s gaze, Will did a double take as he saw his body returned to normal. No pregnant belly or bulge to deal with. He was swamped by the t-shirt he was wearing.

“What…” Will tried to speak, voice cracking and then weakly grabbed at the water bottle on the bedside table.

Lifting the bottle and opening it before guiding it to Will’s mouth, Hannibal helped Will drink. “I am unsure,” Hannibal said in an uncertain voice. “But know that all of this did happen. You were not imagining any of it.”

A dark chuckle escaped Will and he shifted his legs, trying to get comfortable, the movement igniting pain in places that would not have been hurting if it had just been a hallucination. Will winced and sucked in a harsh breath as he failed to get comfortable on his back. He rolled onto his side, curling up over himself, feet sliding in the mess he’d made on the vinyl sheet.

“Come, let me clean you up and put you back in my bed,” Hannibal urged.

And so, with the last remainder of his energy, Will allowed himself to be carried from the guest bed and taken to the en suite. He was near boneless while he was held up by Hannibal, stripped naked, soaped and rinsed. Will might have protested if he wasn’t on the verge of passing out, but he was thankful when he was clean and dry, and tucked up in Hannibal’s bed once more.

***

“Mylimasis…” Hannibal murmured as he kissed Will’s forehead, Hannibal’s bed shifting with the movement.

The darkening sky outside told Will that it was now some time in the mid afternoon. He looked up to Hannibal who was sitting on the edge of the bed, bent over him and tenderly stroking his hair. To have Hannibal so close to him and for it to not be an attempt to harm him in some way was still a heady thing to experience.

“What does ‘mylimasis’ mean?” Will asked.

Hannibal hummed and gave his forehead another kiss. The kiss lit inside Will feelings of contentment, peace and belonging that he had never truly felt to any real degree, but with Hannibal there was a budding bloom of desire with roots that Will had not given himself the chance to truly consider before. The roots ran deep and had crept through him in the time he had known Hannibal, though kept in check with the low burning anger he still felt over so many things.

“It means ‘beloved’ in my mother tongue,” Hannibal said.

Huffing a breath, Will’s eyes fluttered closed as he composed his thoughts. “I find it difficult to believe you would consider me so.”

Hannibal’s lips touched Will’s forehead again and he could feel the curve of a smile. “Then I will have to help you understand.”

“I… suppose you shall have to,” Will replied, eyes opening again. He looked up at Hannibal, gaze drawn to his lips, and reached up from under the covers to pull Hannibal’s mouth down to his own.

The kiss was a soft press of lips that warmed Will and sheltered him from the events of the past week. A stark contrast to how everything had begun between Will and the monster. Between Will and Hannibal.

Pulling back, Will glanced around the bedroom and saw that the shadows in the corners of Hannibal’s bedroom seemed darker than was natural.

“They wish to be near their mother,” Hannibal explained, seeing where Will was looking. “So far they appear harmless enough. Though I expect with age, they would become as lethal as their father was.”

Will swallowed and nodded.

“They presently do not eat anything, I have tried to tempt them with a few morsels. But they do not seem to need physical sustenance.” Hannibal stroked a curl of Will’s back behind his ear. “It is possible that they are born with all the sustenance they need. Or perhaps they gain sustenance from a far less… physical source once in the world. They seem stronger at night. As if the darkness itself feeds them.”

A shudder ran through Will. “I wonder how long it takes for them to mature,” he said slowly.

“Little time at all,” Hannibal responded in a murmur. “They have grown faster than the dwindling light would have accounted for.”

Will was about to reply when his stomach rumbled hungrily.

“Do you think you have the strength to leave the bed?” Hannibal asked. “It would do you good to get up.”

Will chuckled, not used to being any form of invalid. “I suppose you’re right.”

With some effort, Will managed to get out of bed with Hannibal’s help. He still ached and felt sore in various places, but once he had used the bathroom and slipped into clothes borrowed from Hannibal (a soft red knitted sweater, and a pair of dark gray sweatpants that Will couldn’t quite believe Hannibal owned), Will sat on a stool in the kitchen and watched Hannibal work.

In the corners of the kitchen, Will’s children lurked while Will watched Hannibal cook. Will didn’t ask what the meat was, but the dawning realization that he was no longer Jack’s man was becoming readily apparent to him. There was no way he could go back to the subterfuge that he was meant to be engaged in—and while they had not talked of it, Hannibal was clearly no longer all he seemed to be.

A long black tendril slipped from Hannibal’s torso and picked up a bunch of dried herbs and brought it over to the cut of meat (liver, Will had guessed) Hannibal was preparing. Hannibal was clearly adapting quickly to his new appendages.

Will could tell that Hannibal was not like the doppelgänger that had hurt him. It was something about the way Hannibal held himself and spoke, that suggested he was himself but had become something more. Seeing the tentacle made Will feel both fear and excitement, with excitement winning as a blush lightly colored his cheeks.

Placing a hand on his flat stomach, Will wondered if he had changed on some fundamental level too. Well, he clearly had, because instead of wanting to rip Hannibal apart limb from limb, he was considering what he could do to break from Jack and the machinations of the FBI. But Will also considered that perhaps a deeper change had happened inside of himself.

He held his right hand out towards a dark corner of the kitchen and a shadow broke away and curled around his hand. Soft cool tendrils sucked on his skin and a low purring noise issued from it, causing Will to feel a stab of protectiveness. The other children shifted in their corners, their chitters on the edge of hearing.

A normal life or career suddenly seemed an impossible thing, not that either had ever seemed possible for Will previously. And as he watched Hannibal craft a meal to feed and restore him, because apparently he had lost too much weight those past few days, Will felt his longing for Hannibal grow.

Though at some point he would have to confront him about Beverly. About Abigail. The manipulation. Just not while he was cooking, because Will was famished.

“There’s something I need to tell you, Will,” Hannibal said as he set in front of Will a plate of fried liver with new potatoes, greens and some kind of sauce. Hannibal joined Will on the opposite side of the counter, perched on his own stool, the same meal in front of him. They each had a glass of water beside them, not Hannibal’s customary wine.

“Something to tell me?” Will asked, wondering what Hannibal could possibly be about to confess and prepared for it to be yet more lies.

“Yes. I consider that the… dynamic between us has changed.”

Will shrugged. “That much is obvious. But that’s not what you want to tell me.”

“Correct.” Hannibal picked up his knife and fork. “I did not kill Abigail.”

“Then who did?” Will asked, setting down the knife he had just picked up, but his hand still poised over it.

“Abigail is very much alive.”

Will slid off his stool and found himself caught in the embrace of Hannibal’s extra limbs, a foot from the floor. Hannibal lifted him and came to stand by Will’s side, his arms and extra limbs embracing him. The pressure calmed the shock that had dropped Will off his stool and he gazed up into Hannibal’s eyes, seeing no trace of a lie.

“Abigail isn’t dead?”

“She has been living in a property of mine on the coast. Safe.”

“Minus an ear,” Will pointed out.

Hannibal grinned. “I hope to construct a new one for her using plastic surgery in the coming months.”

The weight of what Hannibal said started to sink in. “She’s alive?”

“Yes and if you would permit me, we shall see her soon.”

Letting out a shaky breath, Will pressed himself closer to Hannibal, tears running down his face as he held onto Hannibal and was held in return. He cried and Hannibal said nothing, instead stroking him and kissing the top of his head.

Eventually, Will regained some of his composure and pulled back enough so he could meet Hannibal’s eyes. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Yes?” Hannibal asked with a politely raised eyebrow.

“Jack knows what you are,” Will confessed. “But I… can’t carry on with his plan, now, after all of this.”

Hannibal’s eyes went wide for a second and then settled into a calm calculating gaze. “If,” Hannibal began, hand and a tentacle stroking Will’s face, “you are amenable, it would please me to suggest an alternative path for you to tread.”


	6. Epilogue: Alana

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. This is the end!!!
> 
> Thanks for reading. And thank you to those of you who gave me words of encouragement while I posted. I really wanted to get it finished in time for Halloween and I've succeeded on that front.
> 
> This has been my longest fic for Hannibal fandom since I started writing in it. And so I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I have writing it.

Winston ran away before Will could come and collect Winston and the rest of the pack. When Alana got no answer from either Hannibal’s house phone or Will or Hannibal’s cell phones, Alana went first to Will’s home. But she was surprised that Winston was not there as he would normally be.

A heavy feeling of trepidation drove with Alana as she then made her way to Baltimore and Hannibal’s home. No one was there. And it was the same at Hannibal’s office.

“Jack,” Alana greeted in a panicked voice, talking into her cellphone, as she sat outside Hannibal’s office in her car.

“Alana, what’s wrong?” Jack asked, instantly picking up on Alana’s distress.

“I think something’s happened to Will and Hannibal. I can’t find them and neither of them are answering their phones.” Alana looked up to the imposing building that house Hannibal’s office. “I haven’t heard from them in days.”

Jack audibly swallowed. “Where are you?”

“Hannibal’s office.”

“I’ll come to you. Stay there.”

Within hours, Hannibal’s office and home, and Will’s home, were swarming with FBI agents and forensics specialists. But no traces of them or Winston could be found. After hours of searching, Jack, Alana, Price and Zeller returned to Quantico to pour over what little information they had gained.

It wasn’t until after they left that an FBI agent found a false wall in Hannibal’s basement. There was not much there, but there was enough—not that anyone knew what to make of the darkened tub of acid. Everyone knew Hannibal was the Ripper and Alana finally felt fear for Will and his fate.

In the days that followed, alerts about Hannibal and Will were issued to all US law enforcement, airports and ports of entry. Interpol was put on alert. Everyone thought that Will was a victim, abducted by Hannibal for some reason or other. Because there was no way that he could be involved—right?

But weeks later when Alana read a report out a curly haired man with glasses who fit Will’s description, being seen before a prominent murder in Argentina, she started to have her doubts. Though what was even more bizarre was the report’s description of seemingly sentient shadows and the CCTV captured image of what must have been Will, but his stomach was unusually swollen and round—almost as if he were pregnant. And then there was the young woman with him as well, who almost could have been Abigail, but Alana knew she was just seeing a ghost there.

Once the FBI could spare Jack to go down to Buenos Aires to investigate the sighting, the trail had long since grown cold.

Weeks turned to months, and months turned to years. Every now and then, TattleCrime would publish a suspected sighting, but they were all rumors and shadows—nothing concrete. Jack, Alana, Price and Zeller eventually gave up on ever picking up Hannibal and Will’s trail. The case grew cold in the truest sense and new threats and bogeymen drew the attention of the FBI.

“Where do you think they are?” Jack asked, one long night as he and Alana sat in his office, tumblers of whiskey in hand, the shadows gathering in the corners. He didn’t need to say who for Alana to know who he was referring to. Bella had passed near a year ago and despite Alana suggesting Jack should take early retirement, Jack had stayed at the FBI.

“Europe, perhaps?” Alana guessed.

“I keep wondering if I should try to pick up their trail,” Jack said, “head on out there and see what I can find.”

Alana looked from the glass of whiskey in her hand to the corners of the office behind Jack’s desk. For a moment, it looked as if the shadows were moving and Alana looked back at the drink in her hand.

“They’re little more than smoke now. I don’t believe we’ll ever catch up with them. And then I doubt Will is still alive.” Alana took another sip, the amber liquid burning down her throat.

The shadows shifted.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments appreciated.
> 
> I'm [hitthebookspost](https://twitter.com/hitthebookspost) on Twitter. See my [carrd here](https://hit-the-books.carrd.co/).


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